


gravitate

by orphan_account



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous Relationships, Body Modification, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, Future Fic, Past Injuries, Rule 63
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:14:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23129893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Junhui’s dreams have that shimmery quality to them lately. They’re on a loop. She thinks it’s supposed to mean something.Or: Seventeen are on a hiatus. Junhui and Wonwoo come round full circle in Guangzhou.
Relationships: Jeon Wonwoo/Wen Jun Hui | Jun
Comments: 7
Kudos: 52
Collections: ENFANT D'ÉTÉ - ROUND 1





	gravitate

**Author's Note:**

> written for [ENFANT D’ÉTÉ - ROUND 1](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/summerchildfest1)
> 
> all injuries mentioned are non-graphic and fictional. there are warnings for past references to situational depression.
> 
> hello. i'm so sorry i veered off this prompt and didn't put enough teasing/yearning shenanigans or focused more on the smut as i thought i could. this ended up being very loosely inspired by westworld. idols with robotic parts/cyborgs in a technologically advanced universe probably isn't what anybody wanted at all but i still hope anyone who reads this enjoys <3 thank you to the mods for organizing this and for their hard work!

Junhui waits for Wonwoo to touch down in Guangzhou Baiyun Airport in the middle of the day when the sun blazes a path across the sky. Junhui has spent the last week at home in Shenzhen, so she’s used to the heat of the encroaching summer. But Wonwoo? She never enjoyed traveling overseas during the hot weather, unless it was some place like New York. Wonwoo spent their free days on tour there dipping a spoon and index finger in whipped cream atop colourful parfaits and cakes outdoors at the restaurants that Jisoo brought them to, drinking lemonade that Junhui bought near Central Park.

“You can play your Jay Chou ballads, just no Top 40’s pop,” Wonwoo pleads, pulling at the strands of hair sticking to her neck, tinged a feverish pink and settling back into the passenger seat of this borrowed SUV.

“Or you could try falling asleep?” Junhui suggests innocently.

Junhui got her license long ago after Jeonghan gently coaxed her into it. The only time she’s ever needed it was on Beijing’s ruthless highways on time off with Minghao calm in the passenger seat, whilst Hansol and Jisoo had had no choice but to pray for their lives, clutching onto their seat belts in the back. 

Wonwoo’s silent next to her as she adjusts the A/C to face them both while the voice assistant predicts traffic a mile up ahead on their route. Sure enough on the open road, the other cars move at snail pace, multi-coloured bricks crawling in the slow glaze of the summer heatwaves, sunlight glare bouncing off the mirrors. The sky is a perfect clear blue.

“So, did you really want to go on this trip with me?” Junhui asks, the piano chords tinkling off a pretty tune before Jay Chou’s vocals take over in the background.

She hears the amusement in Wonwoo’s voice when Wonwoo answers, “No. I should have gone with Jisoo, Soonyoung and Seokmin to America because all they’re going to do is go to Disneyland for the third time. And clubbing. God.” She snickers to herself. Jisoo and Hansol haven’t talked to Wonwoo since the New Year when they’d caught up again over dinner, along with Junhui and Chan. Every trip now with Wonwoo would have been long overdue.

“That’s sweet of you,” Junhui mutters. She’s acutely aware of Wonwoo watching her movements.

“You’re in safe hands. I’ve got no other choice but to drive slowly anyway,” Junhui assures her with a grin. “I still pick things up pretty fast. There are perks to this out of work, you know.”

“I’d envy you,” Wonwoo says, the same brisk hint of laughter in her voice that she uses when she’s joking.

“You wouldn’t,” Junhui replies, almost rolls her eyes while at it but a car cuts them off and she swerves easily with a sharp jerk. “Sorry!” she chirps to Wonwoo, who has flattened herself against the seat. 

Wonwoo just winces before agreeing, “Yeah, I wouldn’t.”

Five years ago when their third world tour was about to take off, they’d been in Japan, Nagoya probably, when Minghao came forward and spoke up about her back. 

“They’ll have me take tests when we get back,” she grumbled, leaning back and slouching in a way that looks like it actually might make her back worse on the twin bed of her hotel room, Jisoo’s blanket spread over her legs. Junhui smacked her there, before Minghao sat up straight to fix her posture, glaring. 

In Seoul, Minghao came back from the doctors looking ready to cartwheel and flip her way back into the practice room. Which is a complete irony since she hadn’t done any acrobatics ever since a special stage for an end-of-year awards show while they were trying to find strong footing after the rookie status lifted.

It all seems to funnel out in different shades of colour—monochromes and two-tone now when Junhui thinks about signing her contract again.

Which brings her to this not-nightmare that she had: 

She’s standing on a stage, silk around her wrists for My I. When she gets ready to pull Minghao into her arms, the string goes taut, but Minghao isn’t holding it anymore. The arena and its LED screens looks like the one in Manila. Minghao is looking at Junhui’s feet, her body still poised elegantly mid-choreo.

Junhui’s feet are bare, skin carved out to show metal underneath, intricate maze of joints moving fluidly when she lifts her feet. If they’re supposed to be horrified, they—and the hundreds of thousands of fans still cheering, don’t show it. Minghao smiles, and beneath the slit of the fabric in her stage outfit where it’s supposed to show a strip of her bare skin around her torso, there are lights glowing underneath like she’s swallowed bulbs, and they’re blinking frantically whenever she twists her body to dance. _They won’t know. That’s the point_ , is what dream Minghao whispers to her before the music swells to the chorus.

The stage changes to a diamond shape, another venue, another crowd with the same glittering lights and she’s at one of the corners. The air feels like it’s humming, mass particles colliding in place of the adrenaline she’s supposed to feel. Someone takes her hand, and it’s Wonwoo. Wonwoo glances down at Junhui’s feet, face blank before she says something inaudible.

Junhui wakes up with a searing pain up her left calf from her foot, lightning shooting through the muscles. The lights turn on, and she realizes the shrill cry is coming from her own mouth, and not from Seungkwan calling her name. 

Seungkwan and Wonwoo are over her bed, and Junhui feels Wonwoo’s hand, warm on her cheek. The pain grows into a piercing throb, and even Wonwoo’s hand feels like a near intrusion. She doesn’t realise she’s squeezing Wonwoo’s wrist until she closes her eyes, as if ocean brine and waves are crashing against her and she’s drowning.

  
  
  
  


The fans don’t know because the selling point stays the same. That they’re loved because they’re human beings trained down to each fired up, dream-hungry bone in their bodies: _Thank you for inspiring me everyday, unnie, I’ll keep supporting! Seeing you do your best gives me strength._

“What happens when we’re all out of strength?” Wonwoo asked once, when they were younger just after debut. She’d snuck into Junhui’s room, because Soonyoung hogged her blankets and pissed her off earlier over something crass she’d said about Wonwoo’s favourite protagonist in the book she was reading. 

Enhancing parts of the human body does have its perks in the industry. Makes it harder for stamina to wear out, better and faster in picking up new choreography and difficult dance moves if a company wanted to sell more ace dancers. An overall stronger body meant less worries about health. “Like the Daft Punk song,” Jisoo had hiccoughed, tipsy, to which no one in the room that was still up that night except Soonyoung, laughed. Junhui was sure Soonyoung didn’t know who Daft Punk were either. 

Not everyone went through it, and getting enhancements done was a long tedious process that went through several board members of the company to decide on whether or not one of their artists could basically turn into cyborgs, part-bionic. 

Soonyoung had been the first in the company—she’d had an old injury pre-idol life permanently taken care of, courtesy of Pledis. And then they’d sent her to Hit the Stage with renewed fire, not that she ever lost it in her. If anyone thought that was cheating, it didn’t matter; people still loved the child prodigies born with staggering talent like NCT’s Ten, and Oh My Girl’s YooA. No matter how much the panel on the show preened and cooed over Seventeen’s Soonyoung’s powerful number during the week with heartbreak as the theme, there was no denying the subtle raw differences that singled the better ones out. Still, Soonyoung made the main headlines among online communities for a short while. GIFs of her strong ending pose and sweet face went viral while the official clip of her performance racked up more views than the others in a span of two weeks.

If you were planned for more opportunities, then the chances of you getting that stamp of approval officiated by surgeons and the chairmen—packaged with an iron-clad non-disclosure agreement, your written consent as well as your parents’—were good too.

Wonwoo’s eyes still seemed to shine in the dimness, moonlight falling over them so her ash blonde dye job turned silver as she laid there on her side facing Junhui, mirroring each other. “So they can keep making us better and stronger, as long as we still want it. But what happens when we don’t?”

Junhui wished she could answer her then.

In retrospect, when Junhui marvelled at how both her legs were already feeling stronger, lighter, more powerful when she’d woken up the morning after she’d gone into the operating room, she hadn’t been thinking at all about new opportunities.

To Wonwoo’s question that rattled off inside Junhui’s skull and still felt the echo of in her own dreams sometimes, well—she’d found that out for herself at the end of their contract:

Jeonghan first sat them all in the living room of their dorm one evening, half of them having trudged upstairs to join the rest in a semi-circle around the couch to announce her decision first. To Jeonghan, renewing contracts when their group activities had reached stagnancy with a foggy future shrouded in uncertainty, felt like shooting herself in the foot.

 _So what are you going to do? And what about us?_ Mingyu had blurted out then, voice cracking, and uttering what Junhui was thinking. 

The real kicker was when Wonwoo decided the same. Seventeen would continue on as 11 members, the articles said.

It made Junhui feel like she’d been pushed off into raging waters without a life buoy when Wonwoo kept her eyes on her own hands folded on her lap that evening.

  
  
  
  
  


It’s been a long time since Junhui has actually spent any time alone with Wonwoo for so long, even when they were whole as a group. 

When Junhui had been lucky enough to stop by Seoul to attend Mingyu's fashion show, she shared to the other members, including Wonwoo and Jeonghan, that she was thinking of booking a roundtrip to Guangzhou for her time off. She wasn’t expecting anyone to say yes when she offered if they wanted to join her. For whatever reason, Wonwoo said no to L.A. with Jisoo, probably because a long time ago, she agreed that she’d go to China with Junhui on their off-time. Junhui first told her mother about their plans and she’d been delighted because she loves Wonwoo like a second daughter. Junhui is also careful not to say too much lest her mother asks _isn’t Guangzhou the perfect spot you’d want a man to take you to?_ So much for trying to come out while she’s soon pushing her thirties and expected to start seriously dating around.

Five whole days with Wonwoo walking around, sightseeing with all the great hole-in-the-wall food spots might have been something Junhui years ago would have been childishly excited about, always fond of the idea of showing any of her members around China, if not Shenzhen. She sort of still is. Would have rattled off a list of things to do in a messy itinerary jotted down in her notes app. She’s only got the itinerary in her head now, because knowing Wonwoo and her, they’d reel off that plan eventually. Wonwoo always liked the _idea_ of organisation and strategy.

“Did I?” Wonwoo frowns, squinting under the sunlight. Her lips are shiny and pink from the shaved coconut ice. She feeds it to Junhui, and it goes down with a shiver, too cold in the heat of the day. “Don’t you mean I thrive on that?”

“You’re not as boring as you make yourself to be, you know,” Junhui says, swiping her sunglasses off and perching them on top of her head. She can see the sweat along Wonwoo’s hairline and the flush on Wonwoo’s chest past the scoop neckline of her top, to her face. “Do you want to go somewhere indoors?”

They’re walking along loud and crowded Shiangxiajiu right now, and Junhui doesn’t actually know how to get to the nearest mall.

“No,” Wonwoo says, tapping her arm when Junhui starts to look for directions on her phone. “ _Malls_ are boring. Unless you’re bored.”

“Okay. Jeon Wonwoo, you can tell me if you want me to take the lead,” Junhui laughs because here in Guangzhou, it’s not like Wonwoo has a choice.

“You’ve said that before.”

“When?”

Wonwoo’s smile is tight the way it gets when she’s either distracted, thinking, annoyed, or all three. Junhui wants to press for an answer, except she doesn’t really know how to anymore. You can’t really skip learning new things about someone, and the new is what pushes you off kilter.

“Can we get those?” Wonwoo points to a stall with lamb skewers smoking fresh out of the flames.

  
  
  
  


“Don’t laugh, this is Hansol’s theory!” Junhui protests. Wonwoo’s doubled over on the bed, her face pressed into a pillow to hide her laughter.

“Well, Hansol is right. If they get the tech right, I don’t think people will even notice when full-on robots will go on to replace idols,” Wonwoo says, after a choked out noise.

“You think that’s a good idea?”

“Fuck no. Finish watching Blade Runner 2049.”

Junhui shrugs. She’d fallen asleep halfway into watching it, her legs splayed over Wonwoo’s lap on the floor of their dorm.

“The side-effects still suck,” Junhui says flatly, tiptoeing in her bare feet to get to the bathroom mirror. Her reflection looks back at her with wide misty eyes, cheeks red. She’s drinking a lot more since they ordered late supper through room service. 

“Should I be concerned?” Wonwoo reappears behind her, fluffy slippers shuffling along the tiled floor. 

“I don’t know,” Junhui answers honestly. There are the short memory blanks. The moments where she can’t tell time. Soonyoung and Minghao had only experienced the latter for a brief period.

Wonwoo steps back a little. Her expression in their mirror is searching, eyes narrowed slightly before she asks, “And what do you dream about now?”

Junhui dreams about a lot of things. The waterfalls in Shenzhen she used to throw herself under, while her mother took pictures. Her father—not her stepfather—walking in and out of the Pledis building corridors. Chan, Soonyoung and Minghao pacing around in the middle of a field, like the one they’d camped out in, cameras around them. Wonwoo, with her hands cupping Junhui’s face before she presses her cheek against hers, lips grazing against her ear and planting a kiss on her cheekbone, like when Wonwoo said goodbye. There are other things too involving Wonwoo. But Junhui would rather keep that to herself.

They share a queen-sized bed. Junhui’s thankful on the third night of their trip when they’d gone to the bar, because it knocked her out and set her sleep schedule right. Went from lying awake with Wonwoo snoring lightly next to her, to being tired enough to fall asleep, spines pressed together and radiating a kind of comfort she’s missed terribly.

She lays her cheek as best as she can into the shallow juncture of space between Wonwoo’s shoulder and the curve of her chest like she used to do with some of the members on their movie nights. Wonwoo is transfixed on the drama they’re watching on her tiny laptop while Junhui unlocks her phone when it buzzes.

 _What the fuck. You were actually serious about Guangzhou and you brought Wonu? Also, send Soonyoung food pics coz someone needs to throw a fit about this outwardly and it won’t me be,_ Minghao texted, in response to a selca with Wonwoo and the Canton Tower flashing with colourful ads behind them that Junhui sent to her.

“Tell Minghao I said hi,” Wonwoo says to her abruptly, minty hot breath fanning over Junhui’s face, the light clean fragrance of her skin products lingering within the space around them. 

“Of course,” Junhui responds with a grin.

  
  
  
  


In this dream, Junhui watches herself hurt her ankle. From a third person’s view, it’s absolutely painless. She recognizes the way her features twinge slightly, mangled for only a split second when she shifts herself seamlessly into place into the back, away from the yellow and pink stage lights piercing the air in prisms. These lights always feel partial and fractal to a bigger thing she’s trying to find.

She hasn’t had this dream in years.

Junhui wakes up with perfectly capable, strong joints and limbs. Time falls back into place and she’s blinking away the sunshine peeking through the droopy curtains of a hotel room, the intensity of it spread out over the walls so that it looks like she’s still in a peach-coloured dream. The menu on the bedside is faded, their featured pork belly hotpot taking up most of the front of it. There’s an empty cup, that used to be filled with hot tea the night before.

Her back is a little too warm because Wonwoo’s arm is flung over her hip. Wonwoo tends to flinch and roll away in her sleep from all of the cuddlers, but now she’s limp with her limbs halfway around Junhui. Junhui gives up on trying to fall asleep again under Wonwoo’s stiff weight, decides it’s not worth the lethargy and headache. She carefully squirms away from Wonwoo to get up and make a new cup of green tea.

They’ve stopped being bandmates but some things don’t change. They still know how to sit comfortably in silence, as well as make small talk over sweet ripe oranges they'd gotten from the market the day before. Wonwoo lingers over the bathroom doorway after she’s stopped laughing at Junhui’s jokes. Opens her mouth and hesitates. Always hesitates before she turns back inside. They’re still not past the part where they already know how to talk to each other—really talk—about themselves. Say one thing, think about it too much. Don’t say anything, and then think about what you probably should have later on.

If Junhui listens to the water running inside and the lull in the spray when Wonwoo moves under it, she can almost imagine that they’re just on another tour.

  
  
  


Looking at Wonwoo over the years up until she left felt like those road trips, where the sight of that one little house by the sea along a route she always knew, brought her comfort because it had simply been there. It changes over the years, paint job cracking, the sprawling tree behind it bending over due to age and obscuring the rooftop. Not to say that Wonwoo got less beautiful over the years. Junhui never noticed how she’d changed until she couldn’t spot that little house anymore. The road they were on isn’t the same now. Like a scenic route gone lackluster, and Junhui had been asleep until now.

It’s like looking over the sweeping burst of greenery, where the city skyline past the forests hasn’t changed much from the time Junhui had first gone on the cable car up Baiyun Mountain. You can keep coming back and not realise that there are places past what you’ve travelled that you will never know about. 

Like looking through the greenish murky waters of a bubbling fish tank. 

Junhui stares, mesmerised at the bubble goldfish and betta fish as they hover over lines of glowing aquariums in a pet store. There’s a light drizzle of rain outside, and they’ve taken to wandering down the streets from the night market to take shelter after they’ve stuffed their faces with dim sum. Wonwoo’s glasses reflect the fish in the water, like drifting flames of oranges and yellows. Her face is ghostly pale against the blue light.

“I have my own at home. You should drop by when you’re in Seoul again,” Wonwoo suggests, and Junhui finally tears her eyes away from them. Wonwoo got back into studying at a university, something to do with communication studies. Home to her in Seoul, is her shared apartment unit with her cousin.

“Do you want more of these?” Junhui asks, pointing at the fish tank. Wonwoo’s nose scrunches up smiling at Junhui, making warmth flutter at her insides.

“Why? Because I’ll call you when one of them dies?”

“So mean.” Junhui shakes her head. “Do you still say things like that to scare men off?”

“Nope. I think I've given up on dating prospects for now. I like being alone.” Wonwoo adjusts her baseball cap, and tucks a stray strand of hair behind her ear. She’s wearing the stud earrings that Junhui picked out for her yesterday, which is kind of touching because Wonwoo doesn’t like wearing earrings, her helix piercings all closed up. “Besides, I’ve gotten good at scaring people without having to say almost anything a long time ago. Am I scary to you?”

The aquarium light falls on the perimeter of Wonwoo’s face and cheekbones. It feels like being let in on a secret, the tanks like glowing rows of gems and treasure in front of them and the pet store is a dim cave. Junhui lets herself look a bit longer. Wonwoo’s always been terribly attractive, more lean muscle when they had to keep fit and curves that jutted out to awkward angles when they were still growing up. Now she carries herself with a quiet confidence that might as well be heartbreaking as much as it makes you want her right up in your space, full attention.

“When I don’t know what you’re thinking, yes,” Junhui answers promptly. She straightens up to give her a full-on smile, the charming one that makes her look like a shark, and Wonwoo blinks twice.

“Why don’t you just ask me what I think?” Wonwoo mutters, pushing up her glasses.

It throws Junhui off in a way she can never really breach when she tries to play coy herself. Being straightforward was always Wonwoo’s thing, and it’s double-edged to Junhui. Made the base of whatever admiration she thought she’d had for Wonwoo when they were teenagers bloom out into something scarier. 

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Junhui concludes, linking her hand with Wonwoo's.

  
  
  
  


Junhui learns that Wonwoo now cuts her own hair, something she knows how to do thanks to general stress. 

“I was supposed to do it before the trip. Just didn’t have time,” Wonwoo tells her, taking off the earrings. “Remember how Seungcheol used to do it when we were trainees?”

“Uh huh.” Seungcheol used to do it for herself and for Jisoo too, because well—Jisoo’s got this thing with hearing the _snip_ of the scissors, clean and brisk clink of metal and the silent fall of the strands floating down like an animal shedding. It calmed Jisoo down a lot before debut, before stylists gave Seungcheol the hands off card.

“You should give me one,” Junhui suggests, smiling slow when Wonwoo raises an eyebrow at her, as she smooths out her hair in front of the bathroom mirror before she continues snipping away.

“Then we’d have the same haircut,” Wonwoo points out for her. “You could try it out for yourself first if they let you. If your mother used to give you haircuts when you were younger, don’t take advice from her. How is your mum by the way?”

“She’s the same as ever. Still asks about you,” Junhui tells her, crossing her arms over herself, leans back against the bathroom counter next to Wonwoo.

Wonwoo runs her fingers through the blunt ends of her hair, now shoulder-length. She glances at Junhui in the reflection of the mirror, chewing on her bottom lip. “You could leave too. Eventually,” she says quietly. 

When Junhui had told her about the new action role in a wuxia drama that she landed, over a can of Tsingtao beer they shared, Wonwoo had beamed at her, eyes dark with the glow of lights reflected in them and turning their skin a soft purple. Throughout the group hiatus, Junhui doesn’t feel like she’s got anything to complain about. It blasted down a door where acting gig after acting gig kept coming in. But after what Pledis invested in her, Soonyoung and Minghao, to keep them polished and functioning perfectly as artists, she’d taken them on with a kind of buzzing numbness at first sitting there listening to the manager discussing roles with casting representatives. It’s worth it everyday now though. Especially when Wonwoo’s jaw dropped over dinner earlier when she found out Junhui would be attending a film award ceremony because of a nomination.

Junhui picks at the hem of her frayed denim shorts. “Eventually, maybe,” Junhui murmurs. “Do you ever wonder what would have happened if you’d stayed?” Junhui asks. They talk about this before, with the other girls. Just never between the two of them alone.

Wonwoo sets down the scissors on the marble surface. Junhui tries not to make eye contact with her in the mirror and looks at the ends of Wonwoo’s hair brushing her bare shoulders and neck. “I think we would have gone to China either way for a holiday,” Wonwoo finally says. “You’d still be nominated for Outstanding New Actress. As for me, I wouldn’t have been able to do what you, Seokmin, Channie and Soonyoung have all gone ahead to do. You know me. You always knew me.”

There’s an odd firmness to the way she says that, underneath the layer of nonchalance. 

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry it took me months to call you back,” Junhui says quietly. That makes Wonwoo go still for a moment, mild surprise on her face. 

“You were busy. Things just—happen,” Wonwoo tries, licking her lips and frowning. 

Understanding is a type of kindness. Junhui had been more comfortable talking to Jeonghan that one time Jisoo passed her the phone. _Have you talked to Wonwoo yet? Junnie, I’m three seconds from sending a message on broadcast to her from you—_ yeah, _she does tune in to my segment on the regular._ The period of time after she signed herself on again were most of when the memory blanks started. She’d just been going through the motions, days disappearing. 

“I missed you,” Junhui says. She leaves it plain and honest instead of tacking on a _way too much_ just to make it cheesy. Either way, it wouldn’t have been a lie.

Wonwoo in front of her now seems to deflate in relief, her delicate shoulders rounded when she replies with, “I missed you too, a lot.” 

That kind of response presents the kind of honesty that Junhui silently worked to stop wanting from Wonwoo for years. 

  
  
  
  


If Junhui has been told before that she was as reticent a person as she was bubbly and bright-eyed, then she had already let that take over the kind of friendship she shared with Wonwoo. Like the attempt of scrabbling at something but retreating back into safer grounds instantly when any opening of letting herself get even closer happens. 

Wonwoo was the one who stuck out her hand first and smiled awkwardly when Junhui shook it, self-conscious in the practice room. She’d watched Junhui pore over her Korean homework and offered to proofread things with the kind of patience that didn’t make her tense up. Wonwoo’s ideal type put on tape for all the interviews, had characteristics of a man who was too good to actually be true and _real_ ; Soonyoung joked about that being Wonwoo’s sexual repression talking. It made Junhui realise that she’s got her own kind of backwards repression when she dated guys who Wonwoo considered ‘alright’ in the bare minimum of standards.

“Did you find it yet?” Junhui asks suddenly. She feels Wonwoo’s thigh along hers, lined up easily when Wonwoo shifts to pocket some spare change in her jeans next to Junhui in the booth. The huge bowl of wanton mein they’d shared for late supper is now empty. 

“Find what?” She pushes her glass of milk tea towards Junhui. It's oolong, still Wonwoo's favourite.

“Happiness.”

“Not yet,” Wonwoo finally answers after a moment’s pause.

The rain falls in torrents now outside, like the world will let the sky have its due and let go of what it held. In the restaurant, the lights glow a dreamy yellow and it feels like they’re underwater, time slipping past slowly.

“I did want to go on this trip with you, by the way. Things in Seoul and getting back to a routine and studying is fine. But I think I needed this,” Wonwoo explains.

The pearls in Wonwoo’s milk tea settle to the bottom again when Junhui stops swirling her straw. “I’m glad you came along with me.” She traces the ridge of the glass with her thumb before she reaches for Wonwoo’s hand on her lap. “I needed this as well.”

“A break?”

“More like time off with an old friend.”

“You could have gone with Minghao, or Kyulkyung,” Wonwoo tells her, lightly pinching Junhui's side which earns a quiet squawk from Junhui.

“Yeah but—” Junhui falters. “Letting myself be known by you always felt different. I like that. You make me feel—” she stops again, fully aware of her pulse and heart beating violently. Wonwoo waits, patient as ever, body angled towards her to show she's listening. Her gaze is unwavering, despite her picking at a stray thread on the hem of her over-sized T-shirt. Some things don't really change. Wonwoo might be nervous about that, but Junhui isn't.

“You make me feel like I'm missing something," Junhui says, exhaling slow.

  
  
  
  


They’re shivering after they make the run from the car in the parking lot to the hotel. Junhui lets Wonwoo go ahead and shower because her body temperature falls back to normal again soon enough, despite her clothes being halfway drenched. 

“Perks,” she says, giggling when Wonwoo rolls her eyes, stalks into the bathroom.

“But your _hair_. Don’t get rainwater on the bed. We might as well share,” Wonwoo calls out.

She’s left the door ajar as usual. Junhui frowns at it, like it can tell her straight up why this invitation feels different. She can hear the moment where Wonwoo’s pants and T-shirt hit the ground, damp and heavy. She’ll forget to remove her stud earrings, the cheap aqua blue pearls on her earlobes will stay on when she showers. Junhui tugs at her high pony, lets her wet hair fall limp and thick, trying to combing through it anxiously. Her heart won’t stop being so loud, steady thunder in her chest.

Junhui knocks on the open door. “Can I?” She motions to Wonwoo inside the fogged up shower cubicle.

Wonwoo wipes away a streak of condensation and steam on the glass eye level to look at Junhui. Wordless, she nods.

There’s a soft swish of cool air Junhui feels on her skin when she undresses, clothes folded haphazardly and put on the counter. She steps in, and they both realise then that the cubicle is just big enough for two, but small enough that there’s barely any room for them not to touch.

Wonwoo is scarily silent, even when she hands Junhui the tiny bottle of body wash, and they switch places to let Junhui lather herself with shampoo and soap under the spray.

Junhui isn’t sure she’s ready to hear an answer for her next question. In place of that, she blurts out, “How long are your showers now that you don’t hog it anymore to mull over your rap and lyrics?”

Wonwoo scoffs at her. “I haven’t beat Jisoo’s record time,” she mutters, her hands motionless behind Junhui’s back when she’s stopped moving circles over, and Junhui starts to laugh because it reminds her of something.

“Do you remember the rap Jisoo and Hansol came up with to try and help you out with songwriting? What was it?”

“Oh my god,” Wonwoo snorts, her hands coming up to cover her face in embarrassment. 

“Well can you relate?” Junhui teases, tries not to shiver at Wonwoo’s hand sliding easily up her waist.

Wonwoo’s narrowed her eyes at her for that, and the water clings to her lashes like jewels. Her arms are around Junhui’s waist when she leans in and Junhui sees a flash of the stars in Wonwoo’s eyes, almost as bright as it used to be for the both of them when they were younger and shared the same dream.

“Is this going to change things?” Junhui asks. She doesn’t know what might happen but it’s like they’ve lighted gasoline in her veins and she’s going to crackle and burst, whatever happens.

“Things are always changing, Jun,” Wonwoo sighs, her eyelashes brushing when she tilts her face and Junhui cups her neck to bring her closer.

Wonwoo kisses more enthusiastically than Junhui would have ever imagined her to be like. She ends up nipping on Junhui’s bottom lip, sucking on it before she goes back to letting Junhui get a feel for it, like she’s reveling in the way Junhui makes a soft noise against her mouth.

They keep kissing. And kissing and kissing, slow and hungry. She lets Wonwoo touch her—hands mapping out a path, blunt nails deliciously scraping down Junhui’s back, waist, below her tits. Junhui’s hand slides down to Wonwoo’s hip, hovering.

“You can do more than that,” Wonwoo tells her already. She’s taken to leaning back against the wall. Junhui feels all of her like this, her shuddering when Junhui pushes a thigh up against hers to keep her there, when she goes completely still when Junhui’s hand goes between her legs. She finds the wetness she’s looking for, goes upward to Wonwoo’s clit, After Junhui’s got two fingers in, Wonwoo’s moving against the heel of Junhui’s palm and all Junhui can feel is how hot she is, the pulse of her cunt around Junhui’s fingers fingers and her slick down to Junhui’s knuckles and palm. The steam makes it feel unreal, spray of the water turning lukewarm now on automatic.

“Do you want it like this?” Junhui asks, and Wonwoo comes alive again, pushing Junhui away gently by the shoulders by way of saying there’s a bed right there.

There’s a wishy-washy attempt to dry off and the sheets are cool when she falls onto them but she’s shivering because of Wonwoo’s hand on Junhui’s hip, pressing down like it’s the only thing keeping them both from being tided over by the raging storm now in the room.

Wonwoo is eager; her mouth goes from Junhui’s, down her neck to the swell of her breasts to where her tongue and teeth graze her nipple. “When was the last time you’ve had sex?” Wonwoo asks her, after she pulls away with a wet sound that numbs Junhui’s mind. She has to take a moment to actually _think._

Junhui just lets out a breathy laugh. “Does that matter? Months ago, almost a year,” she answers anyway, after she grasps around in her mind for some boring hookup after a company event with a model. “I didn’t like the idea of it, at one point,” she reveals, with some immediate regret.

But Wonwoo looks over her without any alarm, brushes back Junhui’s damp hair leaving wet circles on the sheets. “What about this?”

Junhui rests her head back, her mind reeling and pussy throbbing against Wonwoo’s thigh pushed there and leaving a sticky spot. “I want you like this,” Junhui tells her, driving it in by hooking her knees around Wonwoo’s waist.

When Wonwoo moves down to kiss her on the mouth again, it’s tender. Devastatingly careful. “You know what this means. You’re important to me,” Wonwoo says quietly, thumb playing along Junhui's jaw. _Too important,_ is what she doesn’t say but Junhui gets the gist of it this time.

Junhui swallows. Says, “I know. I know.”

If Junhui can’t remember feeling this impatient, this turned on and this stupidly taken with anyone, maybe this is a first. The thought of really enjoying something like sex whenever any of the other members brought it up in their late night staggered conversations in the dorm with the wine glasses out, slowly became out of the question for a while. Self-autonomy was greyed out more than ever when she’s really left alone and reminded of all those wires and gears in place of full flesh and muscle in her legs.

But now she feels it aching down to her gut, the delicious hum in her skin when Wonwoo licks into her mouth, tongue running over her teeth as Junhui sighs into it. She runs her fingers through Wonwoo’s hair, the tips of it fanning out and curling wet by Wonwoo’s neck and shoulders, lips parted when she lays back on the bed under Junhui. This—this is Junhui’s, at least for the night. 

With the way Wonwoo is now pinned under Junhui’s hands, as Junhui licks over the stretch marks on Wonwoo's inner thighs, moves lower to finally taste the warmth of her, the scent of her body wash mixed in, Junhui feels proud. Heady with a kind of victory at how openly Wonwoo reacts, how her knees spread open wider and she circles her hips against Junhui’s mouth. 

She almost gets all of Wonwoo’s pussy into her mouth, short curl of hair brushing against her nose. She knows she’s not great at this. Wonwoo clenches around Junhui's fingers inside her and lets out a drawn out stuttered moan anyway when Junhui spreads her open with her other hand so she can lick and suck at her clit. 

Junhui wants this engraved into her memory; she’s lifted herself up to watch the gorgeous flush on Wonwoo’s chest, neck and cheeks, the way her stomach tenses when Junhui hooks her finger to rub the ridge in her cunt, ignores how sore her forearm is starting to feel when she keeps fucking her that way, faster and harder. It’s insanely hot too, when Wonwoo finally comes like that with a cry, tight around Junhui’s fingers and thumb slipping against Wonwoo's clit.

“I can’t believe you,” Junhui laughs into Wonwoo’s ribs, nosing and kissing along the small curve of her tits, smiling at how Wonwoo wraps her arms around her, content. “Jisoo and Hansol wanted to give you a rap about your pussy game being so bomb when you’re sitting back and letting me take care of you?” 

Wonwoo's smile is sharp, her eyes black and half-lidded. Junhui likes that, likes how she doesn’t withdraw.

“Can you blame me now?” Wonwoo breathes. “Might have been worse if we did this earlier. All those times on tour. I would have gone mad wanting it from you all the time,” she admits, her voice cracking.

Junhui thinks she might go crazy herself now with Wonwoo touching her everywhere she can get her hands on, digging into the flesh of Junhui’s ass when Junhui grinds on Wonwoo’s bare thigh as they kiss. It’s too much—the heat of Wonwoo’s mouth on her neck, Wonwoo underneath her moving insistently again, thighs clamping over Junhui’s for more pressure.

"That's it," Junhui encourages, almost not recognizing how sweet and low her own voice sounds as the bitten back noises from Wonwoo goes higher, more strained. Her nails will leave faint marks on Junhui's lower back and Wonwoo continues to roll her hips beneath Junhui and grind on Junhui's thigh. Her lips brush against Wonwoo's open mouth, jaw, her earring catching. And then it's all vibrations as Wonwoo comes again underneath Junhui, her body trembling.

Junhui’s laughter gets cut off, surprised when she peels herself away and Wonwoo makes to help move her limbs so Junhui is straddling her loosely. She drags herself and shimmies back down the bed, guiding Junhui gently until her pussy is over Wonwoo’s face. She’s still breathing heavy and ragged, leaving open-mouthed kisses around Junhui’s inner thighs, her hand gliding over the part of her thigh that's still wet because of her.

“Don’t want a break?” Junhui asks, completely enthralled, heart constricting funny at the look in Wonwoo's eyes.

“Sit and come on my face first.” Wonwoo says it with the kind of heat and conviction that would have scared Junhui had it been anyone else.

It takes a moment for Junhui to get used to this; where to place her hands because she’s got no decent grip on the thin headboard, how hard she can grind herself on Wonwoo’s mouth.

“You can be selfish, Jun,” Wonwoo coaxes, lips and chin glistening when she moves away to speak and thank god; because it’s like getting sucker-punched after Wonwoo guides Junhui back down, moans a bit while she continues eating her out like she’s been starved. Junhui has to screw her eyes shut at how good it feels, falling forward to fist her hands in the pillows. She exhales out a hiss of surprise when she feels Wonwoo hum between her folds and her tongue pressing and licking into her, the sound of it wet and so satisfying. 

Junhui gets the pace she wants, changes the angle over Wonwoo just slightly until she feels her orgasm building, chases after the pleasure while Wonwoo leaves her mouth open for Junhui to just use, and Junhui does, clutching onto one of Wonwoo's hand, hot at her waist. She makes the mistake of looking down at Wonwoo, whose eyes are now open, meeting hers. The image will have Junhui jerking off regularly now for months, maybe even years. For the first time maybe, her strong so-called bionic fortitude of legs feel weak, her body following after how gone her mind is with blood pounding everywhere and neurons on a high.

She comes like that, her thighs shaking when her orgasm hits, hard and unrelenting.

  
  
  


The ends of Junhui’s hair touch the cups of her bra now when she looks at herself in the mirror.

“There,” Wonwoo finishes, looking at her job done with an anxious sort of pride.

“It’s the perfect length I wanted, thanks,” Junhui says, her eyes glittering in her reflection when she smiles. It’s almost unnerving seeing yourself smile so openly.

It's much nicer on Wonwoo's face as she helps Junhui clean up her hair from the sink and counter. "If you need a haircut, you can come visit Seoul again," she says, resting her chin on Junhui's shoulder from behind, a ghost of a kiss there. Junhui laughs because it's nice to be humoured like this. They both have no idea when the next time will be.

"I'm not sure if you want me to move on after this," Wonwoo says. Her low voice rumbles into Junhui and she wonders if Wonwoo can hear her heart beating from this close. "That was a little problem I had. There was always this possibility I felt I didn't want to miss with you."

Junhui wonders if she can ever fully coalesce what Wonwoo means to her out loud to someone else. Maybe it's easier that way, so you can try to let it go.

"I don’t think I’m even capable of regret when it’s with you," Junhui begins, holding Wonwoo’s hand. "But you know. You have to know—that I don't have it all figured out." 

Again, Wonwoo doesn't look away. "I know."

Between the lines it kind of goes something like this: _I could be happy with you. Maybe I would have learned how to love properly._

Reality isn't really like her dreams with the old past shimmer and haze of constant yearning dulled down so it’s bearable compared to her waking consciousness. Reality is Wonwoo telling her she'll miss her once she leaves, when they see each other along with the rest of the girls, again and again until the next time. Reality is the constant change, and the world not stopping. Maybe this is okay, letting the world spin on its axis. Maybe someday when they’re both better, a little more weightless with what the universe asks of them, the timing will be right.

They leave the hotel and stop by to get lunch at a hotpot place before Wonwoo's flight back in the late evening. Junhui knows she'll dream about Wonwoo squinting against the glare of the deep yellow sunset next to the riverside with the Tower in view, eyes crinkled at the edges and beautiful before she slips her shades on.

  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
